1,3-Dioxolane-4-methanol compounds are used as an intermediate of medicines, agricultural chemicals, etc. and following processes for preparation of them are known: (i) A process for preparation of them by reacting glycerin and an acetonide reagent (Synth. Commun., 22, 2653(1992), (ii) a process for preparation of them from mannitol (Biochem. Prep., 2, 31(1952)), (iii) a process for preparation of them from an ascorbic acid (J. Am. Chem. Soc., 102, 6304(1980), (iv) a process for preparation of them from serine (Japanese Patent Publication B No. 6-62492), (v) an optical resolution of them by using an enzyme (J. Chem. Soc., Perkin Trans. I 23, 3459(1994) and so on.
These processes, however, have industrially following disadvantages:
According to the process for preparation of them by reacting glycerin and an acetonide reagent of (i), a mixture of a compound acetalized between positions 1 and 2 and a compound acetalized between positions 1 and 3 is produced and it is hardly difficult to separate each compound from the mixture. According to the method of (ii), because chemically equivalent amount of lead tetraacetate or sodium periodic acid is used in case of cleavage of 1,2-diol compounds, it takes high costs and in case of preparing an optical isomer, only a (S)-form is obtained because only D-mannitol is present in nature. According to the process for preparation of them from L-ascorbic acid or D-isoascorbic acid of (iii), because chemically equivalent amount of lead tetraacetate or sodium periodic acid is used, it takes high costs like in case of (ii). According to the method from serine of (iv), in case of preparing an optical isomer, only a (R)-form is obtained because only a (L)-form is present in nature like in case of (ii) and furthermore in case of reduction of the carboxylic acid, the reagent which is difficult to be dealt with in mass production such as lithium aluminum hydride etc. must be used. According to the process by the biochemically optical resolution method of (v), purity of one of optical isomers is high, but purity of the other is low, and in some cases, in order to separate an optically active alcohol and an optically active ester which are prepared from a racemic alcohol, separation by column chromatography is necessary and therefore, it is not suitable for mass production. Furthermore, any process mentioned above contains many steps and is not practical. Therefore, a more efficient process for preparation of a 1,3-dioxolane-4-methanol was desired.